Why Striving For Perfection is Killing Your Dreams.

Perfection is the enemy of progress.

The quest for perfection will take you on the fast track to UNHAPPINESS.

Wanna know why? Perfection does not exist. Perfection is an illusory force that will drown you in never-ending disappointment and unhappiness.

Perfection is just another form of procrastination and resistance and it’s the mortal enemy of progress.

Do you find yourself striving for perfection? I know I have suffered this awful fate in my life and I still do sometimes! Do you feel like once you make a decision you won’t be able to change your mind, is that a scary thought for you? Nothing is permanent, NOTHING.

Do you feel like once you have made a choice it will determine who you are and what it says about you? And that people will judge you for it?

When you have a choice to make and don’t make it, that in and of itself is the price of not choosing, it’s the best friend of perfection, inaction.

My blog took me months of asinine preparation. From WordPress to topics to web hosting to fonts to colors, what about my logo? Oh my goodness, I had driven myself to the brink of insanity. I was obsessive and compulsive and I could not see a way out of the madness. It HAD to be PERFECT or I would NOT publish it. So, it was never going to get done if I kept that mindset.

In the end, I just had to surrender to a greater ideal, just let go and move forward. I realized, it was NEVER going to be PERFECT! I felt so unsure and afraid, if it’s not perfect, who is going to read it? What if I have grammatical errors and even worse, spelling mistakes!! The gremlins in my mind got louder and louder until I had to hit the internal MUTE button and hit PUBLISH!

What’s the point of all this if it’s not FUN right?

Here’s the TRUTH: NOTHING will ever be just right, or perfect. We are perfect in our imperfections and that is just right!

The Consequence of Perfection.

The pursuit of perfection comes with some hefty costs. It stops you from moving forward in your life. When you are so busy waiting for things to be perfect, you miss out on opportunities. Some of the most successful people were not ready to launch a product or a service but they did it anyways and they turned their uncertainty into success.

YOU CANNOT AFFORD TO CONTINUE TO CHASE PERFECTION.

Underneath the facade of perfection is a fear of failure or a fear of not being worthy. The reality is this, if you aren’t failing or missing the mark from time to time, then your fear has probably paralyzed you and you just need to take a leap of faith and just do it. Part of the learning curve of success is failure and not getting what you want from time to time, listen we all screw-up, life can be a messy and complicated adventure. so start looking at perfection as a hindrance to your success instead of something to aim for.

The Universe works in amazingly mysterious ways. It may not give you what you want, but it will always give you what you NEED.

I never considered myself a writer or even remotely creative for that matter and my blog gave me so much more than I could have ever expected. I was scared, I doubted myself, I thought, who would want to read this? Ugh. My internal monologue was overriding my ability to see beyond the facade of FEAR and doubt. I had to grab the handbrake to prevent my humiliation and pulled it! “STOP it’s unsafe out there, you can’t do this, you should not do this, people will laugh at you.”

“I’ll show you FEAR and EGO, YOU BET I CAN do this.”

What a process this has been. We are all connected in one way or another and none of us are impervious to the occasional bout of insecurity and uncertainty. But it’s “in those moments of decision that shape our destiny.” It’s the graceful elegance of just moving forward one small step at a time.

We all have doubts and we all have fears. It is up to us to move through them or let them stop us in our tracks. I’m not sure if it gets easier but I am sure of one thing, if you just hit mute a few times, those voices in your head become subdued and don’t fight so hard to make you believe them.

Perfection is an illusion of the mind. It’s the EGOs attempt at keeping you stuck, safe and limited. Your brain enjoys autopilot because that’s easy and you don’t have to work. Doing something you have never done requires attention, effort, and commitment.

As human beings, we are remarkable, our hearts are filled with immense LOVE and we are all here to experience the privilege of our lives through our own perception and our own experience.

We will never be perfect in anyone else’s eyes, or even our own. The goal is not to strive for perfection. The goal is to overcome the thoughts that make us believe we need to strive for it, squash that perfection barometer and start living!

The more we accept who we are and the more we accept others just the way they are that will only help us become more accepting of ourselves and accepting of those around us.

Perfection will keep you LIMITED, STUCK, and SAFE, it is also a form of resistance. It certainly is a sure way of NOT getting anything accomplished.

Do you still want to be perfect?

Sometimes our primitive minds revert back and we get stuck in the mindset that if we make a decision or don’t make it, unless the timing is just right, that somehow we diminish the opportunity or decrease our chances of success.

The one thing about life is that it is always in a state of impermanence. The only thing this is consistent is change.

I want to challenge you to UP your game and master your doubt and no more whether something is perfect before you do it.

When those feelings do come up, say thank you, but no thank you, not on my watch. Be like Gandalf at the bridge “you shall not pass!”

Choose to surrender all fears, all doubts, and anything that doesn’t feel good to you.

You are AMAZING and BEAUTIFUL just the way you are.

Steve Jobs once said:

“Your time is limited so don’t waste it living someone else’s life. Don’t be trapped by dogma, which is living with the results of other people’s thinking. Don’t let the noise of others’ opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important have the courage to follow your heart and intuition, they somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary.”